The Wandering Jew — Volume 11 eBook

“Really,” said the princess, with a sort
of incensed amazement, “I scarcely know if I
wake or sleep.”

“Dear me!” said Adrienne, in apparent
alarm; “this doubt as to the state of your faculties
is very shocking, madame. I see that the blood
flies to your head, for your face sufficiently shows
it; you seem oppressed, confined, uncomfortable—­perhaps
(we women may say so between ourselves), perhaps you
are laced a little too tightly, madame?”

These words, pronounced by Adrienne with an air of
warm interest and perfect simplicity, almost choked
the princess with rage. She became crimson, seated
herself abruptly, and exclaimed: “Be it
so, madame! I prefer this reception to any other.
It puts me at my ease, as you say.”

“Does it indeed, madame?” said Adrienne,
with a smile. “You may now at least speak
frankly all that you feel, which must for you have
the charm of novelty! Confess that you are obliged
to me for enabling you, even for a moment, to lay
aside that mask of piety, amiability, and goodness,
which must be so troublesome to you.”

As she listened to the sarcasms of Adrienne (an innocent
and excusable revenge, if we consider all the wrongs
she had suffered), Mother Bunch felt her heart sink
within her; for she dreaded the malignity of the princess,
who replied, with the utmost calmness: “A
thousand thanks, madame, for your excellent intentions
and sentiments. I appreciate them as I ought,
and I hope in a short time to prove it to you.”

“Well, madame,” said Adrienne, playfully,
“let us have it all at once. I am full
of impatient curiosity.”

“And yet,” said the princess, feigning
in her turn a bitter and ironical delight, “you
are far from having the least notion of what I am about
to announce to you.”

“Indeed! I fear that your highness’s
candor and modesty deceive you,” replied Adrienne,
with the same mocking affability; “for there
are very few things on your part that can surprise
me, madame. You must be aware that from your
highness, I am prepared for anything.”

“Perhaps, madame,” said the princess,
laying great stress on her words, “if, for instance,
I were to tell you that within twenty-four hours—­suppose
between this and to-morrow-thou will be reduced to
poverty—­”

This was so unexpected, that Mdlle. de Cardoville
started in spite of herself, and Mother Bunch shuddered.

“Ah, madame!” said the princess, with
triumphant joy and cruel mildness, as she watched
the growing surprise of her niece, “confess that
I have astonished you a little. You were right
in giving to our interview the turn it has taken.
I should have needed all sorts of circumlocution to
say to you, ’Niece, to-morrow you will be as
poor as you are rich to day.’ But now I
can tell you the fact quite plainly and simply.”

Recovering from her first amazement, Adrienne replied,
with a calm smile, which checked the joy of the princess:
“Well, I confess frankly, madame, that you have
surprised me; I expected from you one of those black
pieces of malignity, one of those well-laid plots,
in which you are known to excel, and I did not think
you would make all this fuss about such a trifle.”